JustDuckie

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Last night I dreamed I was given a bottle of wine with a Beijing appellation, and the label was covered with hundreds of tiny raccoons. I have never wanted wine less.

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My Junk Drawer (http://amymebberson.tumbl... http://40.media.tumblr.co... )

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How Lord Byron's Scandals Led Ada Lovelace To Become A Mathematician (http://io9.com/how-lord-b... http://i.kinja-img.com/ga... )

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"Ada Lovelace is now most famously known as the mother of computer science, but during her lifetime, she was also well known on account of her famous father: Lord Byron. Although Ada never met her father, his scandalous behavior had a profound effect on how she was raised -- on a strict diet of mathematics." - JustDuckie - -

"Annabella believed that Byron's moral failings — in addition to his more open debaucheries, Annabella suspected him of committing incest and engaging in same-sex sexual encounters, a capital offense at the time — were the result of the poet's imagination being allowed to run wild. She feared that this same Byronic "madness" might crop up in her daughter. So she made every effort to suppress young Ada's imagination. Of course, it's a difficult thing to stifle a child's imagination, and Ada had a very active one. Her childhood writings include short works of fiction, her dreams of founding a colony, and fanciful plans for a steam-powered flying mechanical horse. Lord Byron had named Annabella the "Princess of Parallelograms," but the truth was that Annabella wasn't a mathematician by specialty. She was more of an academic dilettante, someone who was always reading up on the latest in science, mathematics, art, literature, and philosophy. However, Ada grew up being told that mathematics in particular would order her mind and, thus, strengthen her character. When Ada was a teenager, Annabella tapped the Cooperative Movement promoter Dr. William King to guide her academic and moral education. Like Annabella, Dr. King believed that imagination was a dangerous thing and he prescribed Ada a rigorous study of mathematics, which he believed would encourage no "objectionable thoughts."" - JustDuckie - -

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Once-Prized Tibetan Mastiffs Are Discarded as Fad Ends in China - NYTimes.com (http://www.nytimes.com/20... http://static01.nyt.com/i... )

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"There once was a time, during the frenzied heights of China's Tibetan mastiff craze, when a droopy-eyed slobbering giant like Nibble might have fetched $200,000 and ended up roaming the landscaped grounds of some coal tycoon's suburban villa. But Tibetan mastiffs are so 2013. Instead, earlier this year Nibble and 20 more unlucky mastiffs found themselves stuffed into metal chicken crates and packed onto a truck with 150 other dogs. If not for a band of Beijing animal rights activists who literally threw themselves in front of the truck, Nibble and the rest would have ended up at a slaughterhouse in northeast China where, at roughly $5 a head, they would have been rendered into hot pot ingredients, imitation leather and the lining for winter gloves. China's boom-to-bust luxury landscape is strewn with devalued commodities like black Audis, Omega watches, top-shelf sorghum liquor and high-rise apartments in third-tier cities. Some are the victims of a slowing economy, while others are casualties of an official austerity campaign that has made ostentatious consumption a red flag for anticorruption investigators." - JustDuckie - -

The article doesn't mention it, but I wonder how much of the craze was because of this film: http://www.imdb.com/title... It was released in China the year I was there. - JustDuckie - -

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Colorado man ticketed for shooting his computer; says it was worth it - LA Times (http://www.latimes.com/na... http://www.trbimg.com/img... )

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"A Colorado man finally had enough of his troublesome computer Monday and did what pretty much everyone has fantasized about: He shot and killed it. Lucas Hinch, 37, was issued a summons by Colorado Springs police after he shot his 2012 Dell XPS 410 eight times in an alley, police said. "He was fed up with fighting his computer for the last several months," according to the police log. Under most circumstances, it is illegal to fire a gun in Colorado Springs, which is about 60 miles south of Denver. There is no law on the books about machine homicide, police said." - JustDuckie - -

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Down to three wolves on Isle Royale -- ScienceDaily (http://www.sciencedaily.c... http://images.sciencedail... )

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"Only three wolves seem to remain in Isle Royale National Park. Researchers from Michigan Technological University observed the wolves during their annual Winter Study, and the lone group, at an unprecedented low, is a sharp decline from nine wolves observed last winter. The study's report, released today, marks the project's 57th year of observing wolves and moose in Isle Royale. It is the longest running predator-prey study in the world. This year, along with the three resident wolves, scientists estimated 1,250 moose on the island and observed two visiting wolves, which came and then left across an ice bridge to the mainland. This growing gap between the predator and prey populations is a trend that Michigan Tech researchers have tracked over the past four years. "It's not the presence of wolves that matters so much, it's whether wolves are performing their ecological function," says John Vucetich, an associate professor of wildlife ecology who leads the study along with Rolf Peterson, a research professor at Michigan Tech." - JustDuckie - -

Terrible news. :( - Jenny H - -

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Father And Daughter Find Baby Foxes In Their Backyard | Bored Panda (http://www.boredpanda.com... http://static.boredpanda.... )

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"What would you do if you found a den of baby foxes in your backyard? Philip Wang and his daughter Alice were recently faced with this question when they stumbled upon a leash of baby foxes in the backyard of their 7-acre Princeton, New Jersey, home. Their answer? Take pictures!" - JustDuckie - -

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Haven't seen the fox that usually sleeps in my garden in the spring/summer this year, hope she/he is ok. - Halil - -

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Georgia Mother Accused Of 'Naked Twister Party' With Teen Daughter, Sex With Minor (http://www.huffingtonpost... http://i.huffpost.com/gen... )

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Georgia! - JustDuckie - -

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Well then. o.o - Soup - -

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Portraits Of Lord Byron, In Order Of Lord Byron-ness (http://the-toast.net/2015... http://17rg073sukbm1lmjk9... )

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"He's wearing like eighteen ascots and they're all flowing in a tempest, plenty of Byron here." - JustDuckie - -

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Model, entertainer Peng Hsin-yi kills self, cites bullying - Taipei Times (http://www.taipeitimes.co... http://www.taipeitimes.co... )

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"TV personality and model Peng Hsin-yi (Ã¥Â½ÂÃ©Â¦Â¨Ã©ÂÂ¸), more commonly known by her stage name Cindy Yang (Ã¦Â¥ÂÃ¥ÂÂÃ§Â©Â), on Tuesday committed suicide in her Taichung residence by reportedly inhaling helium, leaving behind a suicide note blaming her decision on coworkers and bullying on the Internet, according to a preliminary investigation by the police yesterday. The 24-year-old was known for her regular appearances on the TV show University (Ã¥Â¤Â§Ã¥ÂÂ¸Ã§ÂÂÃ¤ÂºÂÃ¦Â²Â), a show targeting the college student demographic." - JustDuckie - -

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:-( - JustDuckie - -

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Myth of tolerant dogs and aggressive wolves refuted -- ScienceDaily (http://www.sciencedaily.c... http://images.sciencedail... )

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"While low-ranked wolves often defended their food against the high-ranked partner and showed aggressive behaviour as often as higher-ranked wolves, this was different in dogs. Low-ranked dogs held back and accepted the threats of the dominant dog. Overall, however, neither wolves nor dogs showed a lot of aggressive behaviour. If any, they showed threat signs. "Wolves seem to be more tolerant towards conspecifics than dogs that seem to be more sensitive to the dominance hierarchy," explains lead author Range. "This was shown by the fact that also low-ranked wolves can challenge their higher-ranked partners and the dominant animals tolerate it, while in dogs aggression was a privilege of the higher-ranked partners."" - JustDuckie - -

Will read this, be interesting to see how the study was actually carried out. - Halil - -

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Magic 'teabag' transforms bland lager into refined craft beer - Mirror Online (http://www.mirror.co.uk/n... http://i1.mirror.co.uk/in... )

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"A special 'teabag' has been designed to transform ordinary bland lager into a refined craft beer. The beer-bag works in the same way as fruit teas, but instead of infusing it in hot water the user drops it into a pint. The sachet, which contains a blend of hops, fruit peels and natural spices, is left for two minutes to transform the flavour without the cost or calories of a craft beer." - JustDuckie - -

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Google Joins the Hunt for the Loch Ness Monster With Underwater Street View | Adweek (http://www.adweek.com/adf... http://www.adweek.com/fil... )

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"The company, with help from London agency adam&eveDDB, has brought underwater Street View to the famous Scottish loch, having introduced it last year to the Great Barrier Reef. You can now jump right into Loch Ness in Google Maps, and peer down into the murky depths. You won't see quite as much as you do at Great Barrier Reef. But it's a charming conceit, and one that Google is running with--even going so far as putting a Loch Ness doodle on the Google U.K. homepage. Meanwhile, adam&eve made the video below to go with the project." - JustDuckie - -

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Takafumi Tsuruta: Not Bound by the Convention of Disability -- Medium (https://medium.com/@eejac... )

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"As my passion is finding ways to ease the stigma of assistive devices, I feel the need to point out that none of the designers who are hiring models with disabilities actually make or market a product for someone with a disability. So you can color me unimpressed when I read this headline: Wheelchair on the runway at Tokyo Fashion Week Against my better judgement, I clicked on the headline. And I'm so glad I did. Because I discovered a designer who is designing for specific needs. And then he is employing appropriate models to demonstrate the purposefulness of his designs. I want to shout his name from the rooftops!" - JustDuckie - -

"Tenbo Magnetic buttons Coat: Magnets are employed in the place of traditional buttons to allow for people with dexterity limitations to dress themselves. But who doesn’t find traditional buttons frustrating and time consuming? Would this not ease each of our morning burdens?" - JustDuckie - -

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Most authors earn less than minimum wage from their writing, survey finds - News - Books - The Independent (http://www.independent.co... )

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"It's the dream of many a frustrated office worker -- quit the rat race and start a new life as a writer. But the career path of an author is rarely paved with gold, according to a new study highlighting the 'huge inequality' between the incomes of big-name novelists such as JK Rowling or Ian McEwan and the majority of jobbing writers. The research, commissioned by The Authors' Licensing and Collecting Society, found the top 5 per cent of writers earned close to half of all the income received by professional authors in 2013. The median income for professional writers is just £10,432, less than the minimum wage. Technical and academic writers are among the worst paid." - JustDuckie - -

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"Ms Solomon said that part of the problem was many publishers have concentrated on the “safe” with celebrity authors, many of whom were not even writers but actors, television personalities and sportspeople. Authors who used to make publishers a “perfectly good profit” of around £5,000 are no longer seen as viable, she said. Advances are less common now, and the size is often smaller." - JustDuckie - -

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Researchers Have Figured Out Troll Behavior and Are Trying to Fix It | The Mary Sue (http://www.themarysue.com... http://static02.mediaite.... )

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"The researchers were looking for ways to anticipate trolls, who were referred to as FBU (future banned users), by studying their habits. The study examined over 10,000 FBUs and found that their commenting life began with a lower level of literacy or clarity in comparison to the rest of the group that they were conversing with. They were generally semi-literate, provocative, and fairly persistent before they eventually got banned. The study noticed that on CNN, the trolls often initiated new posts or sub-threads. On Breitbart and IGN, they usually commented on existing threads." - JustDuckie - -

"They tested out an automated analysis system to identify BFUs early and deal with the vicious cycle, but 1 in 5 users were misclassified, so that still needs some work." - JustDuckie - -

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A Question I'll Never Give A Straight Answer To (http://the-toast.net/2015... http://17rg073sukbm1lmjk9... )

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"This is a pretty sick burn, I look forward to hearing about widespread male unemployment among the ranks of late-night joke writers and everyone at Funny or Die as a result of this burn: "It's just a tough question....because one of the things male humorists never have to do is define what is men's humor. Are men funny? Which, I would argue, they often aren't, but that does not stop them from getting jobs in comedy writing."" - JustDuckie - -

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How To Tell If You Are In A Shirley Jackson Story (http://the-toast.net/2015... http://17rg073sukbm1lmjk9... )

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"1. Someone you have known and hated for thirty years pays you an unremarkable yet somehow sinister greeting at the only grocery store in town, which you also hate." - JustDuckie - -

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Air marshal leaves loaded gun in stall at Newark Airport - NY Daily News (http://www.nydailynews.co... )

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"A U.S. marshal forgot his loaded gun, leaving it on top of a toilet paper dispenser in a bathroom stall at Newark Liberty International Airport, one of the country's busiest hubs. The agent boarded the flight he was supposed to protect without his weapon, NJ Advance Media reported Friday, citing unnamed sources. An airport janitor found the gun and told a TSA officer. The stall was sealed off and Port Authority Police investigators were called, the news site said. Officers were able to track the gun by its serial number. The incident occurred late last month." - JustDuckie - -

You know, as you do. - Jennifer D. - -

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John Oliver Explains How Patent Trolls Get Away With Their Bullshit (http://morningafter.gawke... )

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"The basic history of the problem goes something like this: When the software industry first started booming, the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office didn't have the resources or knowledge to keep up with it, and ended up granting patents that may have seemed narrow enough at the time, but ended up describing all kinds of future inventions that no one would have anticipated. To wit: Some of these patents technically apply to every mobile phone app. Seems great for the future of software development! As a result, companies as big as Apple, Samsung, and Microsoft have found themselves in court in plaintiff-friendly East Texas, where fully a quarter of patent troll suits are filed. As Oliver points out, Samsung even built an ice rink outside the Marshall, Texas courthouse to build goodwill with potential jurors. An outdoor ice rink. In Texas. That's how absurd this has gotten." - JustDuckie - -

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Empty Wheelchair Chases People Around a Mall in One of the Meanest Ad Pranks Yet | Adweek (http://www.adweek.com/adf... http://www.adweek.com/fil... )

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"The prank-style awareness campaign, from FCB Health for Crouse Hospital in Syracuse, N.Y., shares some fairly alarming data: About 54 million Americans have osteoporosis or low bone density, and one in two women over age 50 will break a bone due to osteoporosis. Recovery can be brutal, or nonexistent--hence the wheelchair as the central prop." - JustDuckie - -

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Great-grandmother, 92, hits mugger with mobility scooter - Telegraph (http://www.telegraph.co.u... http://i.telegraph.co.uk/... )

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"A 92-year-old woman has told how she saved her 75-year-old friend from a mugger by ramming him with her mobility scooter. Eileen Mason and Margaret Seabrook were on their way back from a lunch club meeting when the thief struck from behind a fence. He saw the contents of Ms Seabrook's basket, mounted on the front of her scooter, before grabbing Ms Mason by the arm and reaching for her carrier bag. Ms Mason shouted "Oh, no you don't," and hit the accelerator of her scooter. The would-be thief was knocked to the ground before the great-grandmothers, both of Swindon, Wiltshire, sped off. " - JustDuckie - -

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Two Hugo-Nominated Authors Withdraw Their Works From The Awards This Year | The Mary Sue (http://www.themarysue.com... http://static02.mediaite.... )

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"Two authors who ended up on the Sad Puppies slate (or the copycat slate, Rabid Puppies) of nominees for the Hugos have decided to withdraw their names from the nominations: Marko Kloos, who was nominated for his novel Lines of Departure; and Annie Bellet, who was nominated for the short story "Goodnight, Stars." In a statement, Kloos wrote: "It has come to my attention that Lines of Departure was one of the nomination suggestions in Vox Day's 'Rabid Puppies' campaign. Therefore -- and regardless of who else has recommended the novel for award consideration -- the presence of Lines of Departure on the shortlist is almost certainly due to my inclusion on the 'Rabid Puppies' slate. For that reason, I had no choice but to withdraw my acceptance of the nomination. I cannot in good conscience accept an award nomination that I feel I may not have earned solely with the quality of the nominated work."" - JustDuckie - -

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It also has given them name-recognition for reasons they might not want. I've seen/heard a lot of say that they are using the puppy slates as no-read lists. - Katy_S - -

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Virginia Tech study shows adaptability of coyotes - Roanoke Times: Virginia Tech (http://www.roanoke.com/ne... http://bloximages.newyork... )

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"About 17 Virginia counties have coyote bounty programs on the books, although fewer than a dozen were funded in 2014, Fies said. They don't work, though, as 150 years of failure in the Western states has shown. "Logically, it seems like a good idea," he said. "But it doesn't work that way." Coyotes are not just adaptable, they respond to high mortality rates by increasing their reproduction, Kelly said. Hunting and trapping stimulates this, causing coyote females to breed earlier, birth larger litters and keep juveniles in their family groups longer before forcing them out their own. Conversely, when coyote survival rates increase, the females breed later, birth smaller litters and push juveniles out of family groups sooner. "We are the predators. They are responding to us," Kelly said." - JustDuckie - -

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Critter-proof compost bins revealed, Toronto mayor declares war on 'raccoon nation' | CTV News (http://www.ctvnews.ca/can... http://www.ctvnews.ca/pol... )

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"A new, critter-resistant green bin was approved by Toronto's public works committee on Thursday. The new 100-litre bins are twice the size of the current ones, and come with locking lids and latches. "We are ready, we are armed and we are motivated to show that we cannot be defeated by these critters," Toronto Mayor John Tory said as he unveiled the bin design Thursday. "I think people are with us on this one in wanting to make sure...we defeat raccoon nation."" - JustDuckie - -

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It's 'shopped, but that doesn't mean it can't be done. I'm watching you, raccoons. >.> - JustDuckie - -

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Grim Reaper Sings About Kids Dying in Unicef's Insane Sound of Music Parody | Adweek (http://www.adweek.com/adf... http://www.adweek.com/fil... )

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"The hills are alive with the sound of Unicef Sweden singing about cholera. A jolly grim reaper does a Broadway number on waterborne diseases in Forsman & Bodenfors' insane new ad from the children's charity. Titled "The sound of Death," it parodies The Sound of Music -- namely the song "My Favorite Things," performed by children in the musical. But instead of whiskers on kittens and brown paper packages tied up with string, it turns out that Death loves dysentery and leptospirosis. The clip is firmly in the Mel Brooks tradition of dark comedy (Think "The Spanish Inquisition" from History of the World, Part I, or maybe more appropriate, the Nazi-themed "Springtime for Hitler" from The Producers). And any macabre, musical PSA these days is likely to evoke, however slightly, "Dumb Ways to Die."" - JustDuckie - -

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